Last week I was driving along the Thompson Pass Highway – a remote stretch of road connecting Kingston, ID and Thompson Falls, MT. The road follows the scenic North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene (pronounced Core-DUH-Lane) before turning east at Prichard and making its way to Montana. The highway is closed in the winter but is well worth a road trip in the summer or fall.
Anyway, I was driving through Murray, an old mining town with a very colorful history, when I spied a “Cemetery” sign with an arrow pointing up an old road and of course I had to go check it out.
What I found about a half mile down the road was amazing. It was my favorite kind of old cemetery to explore. Perched precariously on a rocky hillside with leaning tombstones and slightly overgrown grass I was drawn in to see what treasures were waiting to be discovered.
I was not disappointed.
The cemetery has been lovingly preserved by the community. All of the graves were marked, either with tombstones or hand-written names. There is a detailed, drawn to scale, map of all the plots which made finding my way around much easier.
The prominent players in the history of the town had custom tombstones that made finding them easy. These include:
- A.J. Pritchard (1830-1902). The man who discovered the first gold in the hills above Murray.
- E.W. Burton (1860-1915) opened the first bakery and grocery story in Murray.
- Edith McCorkendale “Terrible Edith” (1882-1905) a local prostitute with a bad reputation
- Maggie Hall a.k.a. Molly B Damn (1853-1888) A lady of the night who was loved by the townspeople, despite her profession.
After a very productive afternoon exploring this cemetery I came away with a better understanding of the history of this once-thriving town and lots of things to research.
Thank you to the societies, residents and businesses who have restored, marked, and preserved this sanctuary.
